Awards

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

The New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year, Nickel and Dimed has already become a classic of undercover reportage.

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller The Worst Years of Our Lives, as well as Fear of Falling and Blood Rites. She lives near Key West, Florida.

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a jobany jobcan be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generositya land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom.

"A valuable and illuminating book . . . We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage . . . She is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism."Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review

"A valuable and illuminating book . . . We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage . . . She is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism."Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review

"Nickel and Dimed is a superb and frightening look into the lives of hard-working Americans . . . policymakers should be forced to read the last ten pages of Ehrenreich's book in which she concludes that affordable rent, food and health care should be among the chief measurements of a healthy economy, not simply high productivity and employment."Tamara Straus, San Francisco Chronicle

"This book is thoroughly enjoyable, written with an affable, up-your-nose brio throughout. Ehrenreich is a superb and relaxed stylist, and she has a tremendous sense of rueful humor, especially when it comes to the evils of middle-management, absentee ownership and all the little self-consecrating bourgeois touches gracing the homes she sterilizes, inch-by-square-inch, as a maid in Maine."Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times

"With grace and wit, Ehrenreich discovers the irony of being 'nickel and dimed' during unprecedented prosperity . . . Living wages, she elegantly shows, might erase the shame that comes from our dependence 'on the underpaid labor of others."Eileen Boris, The Boston Globe

"A captivating account . . . Just promise that you will read this explosive little book cover to cover and pass it on to all your friends and relatives."Diana Henriques, The New York Times

"There is much to be learned from Nickel and Dimed. It opens a window into the daily lives of the invisible workforce that fuels the service economy, and endows the men and women who populate it with the honor that is often lacking on the job . . . In the grand tradition of the muckraking journalist, [Ehrenreich] goes undercover for nearly a year . . . What emerges is an insider's view of the worst jobs (other than agricultural labor) the 'new economy' has to offer."Katherine Newman, The Washington Post Book World

"Ehrenreich is a wonderful writer. Her descriptions of people and places stay with you. If nothing else, this book illuminates the invisible army that scrubs floors, waits tables and straightens the racks at discount stores. That alone makes Ehrenreich's odyssey worthwhile."Sandy Block, USA Today

"Nickel and Dimed is an 'old-fashioned,' in-your-face exposé . . . this important volume will force anyone who reads it to acknowledge the often desperate plight of Ehrenreich's subjects."Anne Colamosca, Business Week

"Jarring, full of riveting grit . . . This book is already unforgettable."Susannah Meadows, Newsweek

"I commend Barbara Ehrenreich for conducting such an important experiment. Millions of Americans suffer daily trying to make ends meet. Ehrenreich's book forces people to acknowledge the average worker's struggle and promises to be extremely influential."Lynn Woolsey, U.S. Congress, Representing California's Sixth District

"A brilliant on-the-job report from the dark side of the boom. No one since H.L. Mencken has assailed the smug rhetoric of prosperity with such scalpel-like precision and ferocious wit."Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear

"With this book Barbara Ehrenreich takes her place among such giants of investigative journalism as George Orwell and Jack London. Ehrenreich's courage, empathy, and the immediacy with which she describes her experience bring us face to face with the fate of millions of American workers today."Frances Fox Piven, author of Regulating the Poor

"I was absolutely knocked out by Barbara Ehrenreich's remarkable odyssey as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and sales clerk. She has accomplished what no contemporary writer has even attemptedto be that 'nobody' who barely subsists on her essential labors. It is a stiff punch in the nose to those righteous apostles of 'welfare reform.' Not only is it must reading but it's mesmeric. You can't put the damn thing down. Bravo!"Studs Terkel, author of Working

"One of the great American social critics, Barbara Ehrenreich has written an unforgettable memoir of what it was like to work in some of America's least attractive

Review

"We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage and a finely textured sense of lives as lived. As Michael Harrington was, she is now our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism." Dorothy Gallagher, New York Times Book Review

Review

"Nickel and Dimed is an important book that should be read by anyone who has been lulled into middle-class complacency." Vivien Labaton, Ms. Magazine

Review

"[Ehrenreich's] account is at once enraging and sobering....Mandatory reading for any workforce entrant." School Library Journal

Review

"Jarring, full of riveting grit....This book is already unforgettable." Susannah Meadows, Newsweek

Synopsis

The New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year, Nickel and Dimed has already become a classic of undercover reportage.

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.

Synopsis

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages. Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich joined them, moving into a trailer and working as a waitress, hotel maid, and Wal-Mart sales clerk. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and duality.

Synopsis

The New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year, Nickel and Dimed has already become a classic of undercover reportage.

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.

About the Author

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller The Worst Years of Our Lives, as well as Fear of Falling and Blood Rites. She lives near Key West, Florida.

Reading Group Guide

READING AND UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK

1. Near the outset, Ehrenreich (speaking of her own sister) employs the term “wage slave.” What does she mean by this?

2. What are the three rules the author sets for herself at the beginning of Nickel and Dimed? Does she ever break them? If so, when and why, in your view, does she do so?

3. Early on, the author tells us that she has a Ph.D. in biology. How, if at all, does this ﬁgure into the narrative? What does Ehrenreichs scientiﬁc training bring to the “old-fashioned journalism” of this book?

4. Why does Ehrenreich assert in her Introduction that “a story about waiting for buses would not be very interesting to read”? What are the context and rationale for this remark? And given as much, do you agree?

5. Early in Chapter One, Ehrenreich notes that, in terms of low-wage work, “the want ads are not a reliable measure of the actual jobs available at any particular time.” Explain why this is so.

6. At one point, Ehrenreich details the living conditions of her fellow workers at the Hearthside. Reviewing these arrangements, explain how each set-up compares with the authors own “$500 efﬁciency” quarters.

7. Waiting tables at Jerrys, the author meets a young dishwasher named George. Who is he? What is his story? Why do he and Ehrenreich befriend one another? And why does she not “intervene” when she learns from an assistant manager that George is thought to be a thief?

8. On her ﬁrst—and last—day of housekeeping in Key West, Ehrenreich is met by a manager who addresses her as “babe” and gives her “a pamphlet emphasizing the need for a positive attitude.” When and where else, throughout the book, does the author encounter cheap talk or hollow slogans in her endeavors as a low-wage worker? What purposes might such empty language serve? Why is it so prevalent?

9. In an extended footnote in Chapter Two, Ehrenreich explains how “the point” of the housecleaning service where she is employed “is not so much to clean as to create the appearance of having been cleaned.” Why is this? Why the deceit? Why does The Maids outﬁt not clean its clients homes properly?

10. “The hands-and-knees approach is a deﬁnite selling point for corporate cleaning services like The Maids,” the author writes. Explain why this “oldfashioned way” of housecleaning is thus appealing. Why does it seem to, as Ehrenreich puts it, “gratify the consumers of maid services”?

11. Buying groceries with a voucher at a Shop-n-Save in Maine, Ehrenreich notes of the checkout woman ringing up her purchases: “I attempt to thank her, but she was looking the other way at nothing in particular.” What might such body language mean? Why, if at all, is it telling?

12. Looking back on Chapter Two as a whole, what connections would you make between maids and minorities in the United States? What about between maids and poverty, and maids and “invisibility”? Refer to the text itself when making your links.

13. Who is Budgie? Why does Ehrenreich tell us to let Budgie “be a stand-in”? Also, would it be accurate to say that the authors efforts to ﬁnd a safe and affordable place to live were least successful in Minnesota? Explain why or why not.

14. Paraphrase the brief “story within a story” represented by the character called Caroline. What is Carolines tale? Why does Ehrenreich get in touch with this person, and what does she learn from her?

15. As her stint at Wal-Mart winds down, the author mentions to several of her colleagues that they “could use a union here”—only, as she herself readily admits, she is “not a union organizer anymore than [she is] Wal-Mart ‘management material.” So why, then, is she making efforts at unionizing? What has led her to these efforts? What are her reasons, grievances, motivations, and goals?

16. At the outset of her Evaluation chapter, the author seems to arrive at a new understanding of the phrase “unskilled labor.” Explain this new understanding. Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

17. Describe the problems that Ehrenreich has with how the “poverty level” is calculated in this country. Is she correct on this score, in your view? Explain. Also, how does ones understanding of the poverty level—Ehrenreichs or anyone elses— relate to food costs, and to the authors assertion that our “wages are too low and rents too high.”

18. What is the “money taboo”—and why and how does it function, as Ehrenreich puts it, “most effectively among the lowest-paid people”?

19. Why does Ehrenreich refer to low-wage workers, at the close of her book, as “the major philanthropists of our society”?

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES FOR THE CLASS

1. In the Introduction to Nickel and Dimed, the author writes: “Unlike many lowwage workers, I have the further advantages of being white and a native English speaker.” As a class, explore whether, why, and how these two facets of Ehrenreichs identity were, in fact, advantageous over the full duration of her study.

2. Near the beginning of this book, Ehrenreich compares the restaurant-tipping habits of Americans and Europeans. Near the end, she notes that, while “most civilized nations compensate for inadequacy of wages by providing relatively generous public services,” the U.S. “leaves its citizens to fend for themselves.” What, in Ehrenreichs view, could America learn from other countries about how to better treat its low-wage workers?

3. The action of Nickel and Dimed unfolds in three American communities, as found in three different states: Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. What about your own community? How would Nickel and Dimed be different—or similar—if it included the area you call home? On your own, or as part of a group, do some research—via newspapers and magazines, TV news broadcasts, and the Internet— in order to formulate your answer.

4. Ehrenreich often speaks of dietary matters, of nutrition, of food as fuel. Why does she keep doing so? What did reading this book tell you about how we eat and how we work in America? And what about the correlations that may or may not exist between low-wage American workers and their use of cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol?

5. In her chapter “Selling in Minnesota,” Ehrenreich asserts: “Wherever you look, there is no alternative to the megascale corporate order, from which every form of local creativity and initiative has been abolished by distant home ofﬁces.” Talk about whether this is true in your own experience. If not, why not? If so, where and when have you seen evidence to support this claim? Try to use your own examples and impressions here—not Ehrenreichs.

6. Describing the food at a Florida restaurant where she works, Ehrenreich calls it “your basic Ohio cuisine with a tropical twist.” Later, wondering what living in Maine might be like, she says, “Maybe . . . when you give white people a whole state to themselves, they treat one another real nice.” Still later, she writes that certain clothes on sale at her Minnesota Wal-Mart are “seemingly aimed at pudgy fourthgrade teachers with important barbecues to attend.” Discuss the biting humor— the sharp and sometimes even mocking wit—appearing throughout this book. How, if at all, does such levity make Ehrenreichs arguments more effective? And were there instances where you thought her wisecracks went too far—or fell ﬂat? Explain.

7. “Lets look at the record,” writes Ehrenreich in her Evaluation. What does this record tell us? Where was she most successful in her experiment, and where was she least? Do you agree with the author when she says, after going over her record, “All right, I made mistakes”? Explain why or why not. What could she have done differently, and what would you—in her shoes—have done differently? Explain.

8. Throughout Nickel and Dimedthe author makes complaints about “management.” Summarize the many problems that Ehrenreich has with managers, looking especially at the books Wal-Mart passages and the breakdown of “workplace authoritarianism” in the Evaluation chapter.

9. Explain why Ehrenreich believes that personality surveys and drug tests are both categorically unfair to low-wage workers. Look back over the full range of her low-wage experiences when crafting your answer.

10. More than once in these pages, we encounter the severe bodily and psychological harm that hard work at low pay can cause—the physical damage as well as the threats of what Ehrenreich calls, after an especially trying shift at her nursing home job, “repetitive injury of the spirit.” Prepare a short report on the health risks of lowwage work, based on Ehrenreichs study and on your own ﬁndings in various media reports.

11. One of the strengths of this book must be its cast of characters—the real people who live and work in the real world Ehrenreich is reporting on, those workers with whom she toils, relates, confers, cries, argues, and so on. In a short essay, identify and discuss a certain individual (or two) from this book by whom you were particularly touched. In your essay, explain your choice(s).

12. A few times in Nickel and Dimed, the author refers to the “Sermon on the Mount,” which appears in the biblical book of Matthew. Ehrenreich refers to this sermon not as a religious tract but as a work of a political philosophy, as a treatise on social or economic revolution. What is this sermon about? What does it say or claim? (Do some research, if you are unsure.) Finally, explain why Ehrenreich thinks this sermon now applies to Americas low-wage workers in particular.

13. In a way, this book can read as a reaction to—or a hands-on test of—the “welfare reform” legislation enacted in the U.S. in the 1990s. “In the rhetorical buildup to welfare reform,” Ehrenreich writes, “it was uniformly assumed that a job was the ticket out of poverty.” As a class, conduct a detailed conversation about Nickel and Dimed as a point-by-point examination of this very assumption.

14. This book is, of course, more than a report on, and exposé of, “(not) getting by in America”—it is also a detailed critique. To this end, the bulk of its criticism might well be directed at the Wal-Mart empire. Is this appropriate, in your view? Explain. Given that Wal-Mart is far and away the worlds largest company, is it right to expect the retail megachain to be all the more fair and respectful of its employees? Explain.

15. Nickel and Dimed takes place during a so-called economic boom in American history, the period of “peace and prosperity” (as many people called it then, and still call it now) that was the late 1990s. However, the book is largely about poverty, about the poor—and not simply the helplessly destitute, but rather the poor who are employed full-time. Near the outset of her study, Ehrenreich tells us that “there are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs.” Near the end, in sum, she tells us that poverty is an experience of “acute distress”—a nonstop “state of emergency.” Finish your exploration of the book by talking about what it taught you on the subject of poverty in America. Not just about what it costs to “get by” but about how people living in poverty make ends meet—how they, in Ehrenreichs language, “[try] to match income to expenses.”

4.89

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating 4.8 (9 comments)

This book forever changed the way I tip. Instead of tipping as a percentage of the bill, I routinely tip $5 no matter what the invoice says. It has also convinced me to view employers who pay minimum wages for long periods of employment without increases in salary or medical/dental benefits as predatory behavior at best and stealing from employees at worst. Furthermore, we've all seen the Wal-Mart employee who is missing three front teeth when they greet you and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart. This is 'smart' business? Not very PR savvy, I'd say.

Entertaining and very informative! Unfortunately I am one of the working poor at this time, but I'm fortunate in having it better than most of the people that the author meets in her experiment. This book has definitely motivated me to strive for better career opportunities.

This book is a very good read to those who think that everything is fine and dandy. This is a great book that is rhetorically effective! From her move from Flordia to Maine to Minnesota as a waitress, maid, and a Wal-Mart employee, Barbara Ehrenreich made an effect of the people who will read her book. New York Times raves it as "valuable and illuminating". This is a must read about the "'working' poor".

This is a good introduction to the working poor in this country and why upward mobility is so difficult to attain for so many people. The writing style is very engaging and easy to read, more like a novel than nonfiction, with occasional analysis by the author.

The breif line that I read in the book about not treating all people with Dignity and respect know matter what type of work, is a road to a society of me me me me. I dont Know how it happen but we treat animals better than we treat our own brothers and sisters on this planet.
People will come and people will go from life,and when you leave this life, for Eternity you can watch how you treated people.
James E Feldmann IBEW local # 25

I read this book in college for my "Problems in Society" class. It opened up the eyes of the higher middle class and upper class students that were around me. They then understood why many of us on campus were tired or sick.
I recommend this book to my students all the time. ANY student that refuses to work in your class should be required to read this so that they can correct themselves before having such a life in their future.

This is a quick read by a great writer. It has (thankfully) been years since I had to hoist a tray of fish sandwiches and coleslaw but this book brought it all back home to me -- the terror of rent day; the struggle over which bill to pay on time...... Excellent book and should be required reading for all of our college-aged kids!